Eyes closed and smiling
by BabochkaX
Summary: Patsy and Delia's goodbyes.


(A/N) you'll thank me for this story only until you read it. This just came to me, and I hope you enjoy it as much as possible.

Four am. The kitchen tiles are cold beneath her bare feet but she can't sleep. There isn't a reason why she can't sleep but as she passes the reflective front of the fridge and sees her wrinkles she is reminded, old age doesn't come itself.

There are photographs on the fridge door. Pictures of them, as a couple. There is a picture beside the pyramids, one in Las Vegas, Kenya- and one of their very first trip to Paris all those years ago.

The front of their fridge in the new house has one of those water coolers on the front- where you press the glass against the tab and chilled water flows into your glass.

Although the floor was cool she was hot, clammy from tossing in sheets for too long.

There is too much on her mind.

She goes to the living room with her glass of water, opening the burgundy curtains the slightest bit to let the light flow through and gently wash the wall and carpet in its path.

Another photograph, this one framed, lays on the mantelpiece. The most important photograph- the one of their wedding day. It felt so long ago, but it had happened when it did for a reason. The same reason Delia found herself awake.

She hadn't slept alone for over forty years.

A soft meow behind her brought Delia from her thoughts. Florence stood behind her, the tricoloured cat whom they had owned the past sixteen years. She was old now, slow, but so was Delia.

She sighed and sunk into the special lift-up chair they had bought, patting her knee to invite Florence to join her.

Florence meowed again, searching with her eyes and noes before turning and walking further into the house.

Delia sipped her water, the cold sending a shiver down her spine. She breathed in deeply, taking in the scent of the chair. The smells surrounded her, the smells of Patsy; red door perfume and head and shoulders shampoo: smoke.

Delia felt her body erupt into tears, water flowing like a river down her cheeks.

The smoke had done it, that damn vice Patsy couldn't leave with the sixties. Even earlier that day she had lit up a cigarette, coughing on the poisonous fumes in the hospice garden.

She wanted to keep her wife at home- Patsy wouldn't have wanted fuss- but, being in her late seventies she hadn't managed to care for Patsy. She couldn't help her up and down the stairs, or into the bath. She stayed awake at night fearing sleep apnoea. The cursed life of any nurse, knowing what could go wrong. The worst life she could have imagined was watching it go wrong for Patsy.

As soon as they had learned about the true dangers of smoking Delia had tried her hardest but Patsy needed it, needed a way to escape her demons of the past. A way to forget the survivors guilt she had.

Delia had watched it happen to them all, Barbara, Shelagh, Phyllis. Trixie they had lost in a different way, although living, Trixue had Alzheimer's disease and no idea of the life she had led or even who she was.

Between sobs Delia heard Florence cry out again. Patsy wasn't a huge animal lover but Florence had always taken to her best. Now the poor sod didn't know what to do with herself.

Delia knew how she felt.

Glancing at the clock once more she realised it had been hours now, hours since Patsy had taken her last decision and removed herself from the oxygen she had been dependent on. She had lain on her bed, holding tightly to Delia's hand as she took her last breath. Her eyes were shut, she was smiling; she had died happy.

It had been the pneumonia that killed her, not the lung cancer. The cancer was stage four- terminal- but it had been the old peoples friend.

She wished the friend would take her too, softly and peacefully to join her wife. The woman she had fought for since her twenties, the woman she loved with all her heart. Delia brought her knees up to her chest, cradling like the newborn she had never had. She closed her eyes, remembering Patsy, breathing in her scent. She fell into a dream, a dream where they were together, running have in hand along the beach in Cyprus. They were young again. Patsy still had her red hair, and wore shorts and a tshirt. Delia felt her lilac dress slip about around her legs and the sand beneath her feet. The water came up and engulfed her ankles, causing her to squeal, and Patsy to laugh.

Florence continued to meow around the house as the sun rose. Their home help- Claire- let herself into the house as usual at seven am, to see if Delia needed anything.

This morning, however, there was only Florence to care for. Clair found the little old woman as she had fallen asleep, curled up in the chair. She was cold, has passed in her sleep. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling.


End file.
